Continue drum lessons or not?

Ha! I'm sorry, but this is a great description even if it has nothing to do with the mini-crisis at hand!

That makes sense to me, Rebecca.

Kids can do dance, gymnastics, and other musical things at an early age, but eight is young for instrumental music. My son was ten when I started him on piano and he excelled. My daughter was eight when I started her on piano and she, like Mo, enjoyed going to the lessons, but she refused to practice. We stopped daughter's lessons and she never wanted to begin again. (She did excel in trumpet, however, and currently plays professional bass in a blues band as a sideline avocation.) The son bogged down on practice and we stopped his lessons. He picked it up again in college, currently plays guitar and keyboard in a praise band, and has 10 piano students that he teaches as a sideline avocation.

I agree that nagging is usually ineffective to get kids to practice and the more they are forced to 'resist', the more they are likely to develop a dislike or contempt for the activity.

Moral of story. Every kid is different. Mo's teacher could well be right that if you stop Mo's lessons now, he may choose not to pick it up again. Right now he is enjoying the instruction more than the actual doing of it obviously. If it is not a financial burden, I would let him continue for a year or two to see if it 'takes'. By ten, if he still doesn't want to practice, then give the ultimatum. No practice. No lessons.

(My son who teaches piano to kids gives them that ultimatum up front before they start. You will practice or you will be dropped from lessons. And he makes it stick. But he doesn't take kids younger than ten either unless they are really committed and obviously want to do it.)

I met with his teacher again yesterday, posing Roger's "instruction or entertainment" question. Teacher thought that was a great distinction and admitted that he thought Mo was beginning to view the lessons more as entertainment.

So we devised a plan.

The school requires a 30 day notice of withdrawl. I filled out the appropriate paperwork with the understanding that I could rescind the withdrawl without penalty should things improve.

We let Mo know the ball is in his court. That if he starts practicing and working on it, his lessons can continue; if not, they'll stop until he begins to take some inititive.

I should remind Mo, even encourage Mo to practice but I'm not to nag him about it.

This month will take us right up to the beginning of the school year which is a SERIOUSLY bad time for us to make changes so I'm hoping that having plenty of time to prepare and having some control over the decision will help make whatever happens easier for Mo.

Honest question... what's wrong with lessons as entertainment?

Seems like it's an activity that he enjoys that can coast along on entertainment value for a while until he gets older and ready to get more serious... no?

(Maybe too expensive for entertainment value alone?)

It is too expensive for entertainment running a bit over a dollar a minute.

$200 per month for 4 45 minute classes.

The reason I ask:



I know that's a major issue, and I worry that if things DON'T work out -- if, for example, he doesn't practice but does want to keep at the lessons, and you have to terminate the lessons against his wishes -- that it'd suck mightily and negatively impact the beginning of the school year. So it seems like it might be better to sidestep that issue, especially if the stakes aren't that high. General enjoyment/appreciation for music seems like a good thing, and what littlek said about concentrating etc. also seems like a side benefit.


edit: oops, barely missed you. OK, yeah.

Wow. That IS expensive. There is no less expensive option for you?

Next year he'll be old enough to go to drumming camp with these guys

http://www.rhythmtraders.com/html/classes.html


(I've heard good things about them from the yahoo goblet drumming group I'm in)

I use Yahoo for email.
What is "goblet" ?

Goblet drums are goblet-shaped hand drums.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblet_drum



http://www.rhythmuseum.com/museum/cambodiandrums.html

http://www.rhythmuseum.com/

U get those from Yahoo ?

You probably can order goblet drums through yahoo, however I was referring to the Yahoo groups section.

Yes, it makes sense to me too. I guess I'm of the old school where if kids are not willing to keep up their end of the bargain for something they want, they learn that there are logical consequences- like everyone stops catering to them.

My mom drove me half an hour each way once a week to take piano lessons and I watched her pay money for them. My piano teacher gave me one of her slots and worked with me on assignments (playing AND written believe it or not- sort of like music theory homework).
The rule was, I came home from school, changed clothes and sat at the piano for 45 minutes while my mother read off the assignments- Hanon exercises, page 6( 5x) , sonatina page 36 (5x ) (everything was 5x). Only after I'd done that could I go outside or watch Dark Shadows or whatever...it was a rare treat that I got to go directly home with a friend to their house because my mom knew if I didn't get the practice in right after school, it probably wouldn't happen.

And she wasn't pushy - it was just part of my life, and actually one I've always been really grateful for.

But all kids are different. My daughter asked to play the violin. I bought her one and got her lessons. I was paying a good little penny too - and she NEVER picked the violin up after the first year when it started getting hard. So I just asked her - 'Do you want to play?' She said she did but she never played. So I told her that I couldn't keep wasting the teacher's time or my time taking her if she wasn't going to play. She decided to quit. She still has the violin, she knows how to read music and she still has her music books- I figure if she wants to work on it herself or wants to get herself lessons when she's older, she might take it all a little more seriously if she has to pay for them herself.

No fuss, no fight - but still plenty of opportunities for music.
I honestly believe that people who are musical cannot resist the instrument they're meant to play. Some people are lucky and can play many instruments, but for some people it's definitely a matter of finding the right one. I think if I'd tried the flute first (which I tried later and failed to master) or the violin (which I also tried later and hit a plateau), I'd have wanted to quit lessons too. Luckily, my mom had bought this piano from a friend and that worked out really well for me.

I wouldn't pay $50.00 a week unless he practiced.
I'd be more hopeful that he'd learn not to expect something for nothing if I insisted that he do what he was asked to do- which is in no way unreasonable- so the thirty day trial period sounds like a good plan.

I saw a guy playing one of those in the park. We talked it over and decided it sounded exactly like half a set of bongos.

Played well, it can sound like 20 bongos. I'm still working on the 1/2 bongo skill set.

ehBeth, y'know, you're wonderful.

thanks, but you haven't heard me drum

seriously, I've always had a problem with my independent rhythm. When it was clarinet practice time for me back in elementary school, I needed the metronome, or I'd finish before the piece started. I got somewhat better over the years, but it was my weak spot, musically.

When I started bellydancing, I really needed to work on my rhythm skills as we sometimes accompany ourselves on zills (finger cymbals). I found and joined the yahoo group - advice and links from the experts there have really brought me along. I can set and maintain a zill rhythm - and hold it against people who have lost the rhythm pattern. Drumming has helped enormously with that.

Are you rhythmically challenged, ehBeth?

I had a bad habit of letting other people's rhythm overtake mine. Not anymore. I can work some pretty fancy middle eastern rhythms and changes now.